Can't Fight the Moonlight
by M. Daniels
Summary: "Because Carrot's mine!" So why can't she tell him that? A Carrot/Angua one-shot. R/R.


Can't Fight the Moonlight

The night was still. This was quite unusual for Ankh–Morpork since it was usually teeming with life. Even the rats were silent. Nothing was moving, and it even seemed as though nothing was breathing. This, of course, was ridiculous since all living things breathed and there were lots of living things in Ankh–Morpork. Of course, there were also a lot of dead things.*

Sergeant Angua von Uberwald was one of those things.

Technically she was the undead, but most living things didn't bother to make the distinction. Angua was a werewolf, but she also happened to be a Sergeant for the city's Watch.

And Sergeant Angua smelled blood.

It was a maddening smell and the werewolf part of her body was struggling for control. But if there was one thing that Angua had learned in Ankh–Morpork, it was self–discipline. She could only be grateful that there wasn't a full moon out. She forced the wolf down and continued to investigate. Her nose was going crazy at the odd mixture of smells, blood not the least of them.

She let out a hoarse shout to alert her fellow Watchmen and chased after something down a dark alley. She was getting closer, her senses were tingling at such close proximity. 

She found the body around the next corner. Through the overpowering scent of blood, there was something unfamiliar. It smelled sort of like perfume, except with a higher alcohol content.

He came up behind her and looked at the body dispassionately. "Anything?" he asked.

"Something," Angua replied, not looking at him. That only made it harder. "I can't tell what though, it's not something I've ever smelled before."

Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson scratched his head under his helmet. "So it's not a normal Assassin?"

Angua shook her head. "No, I know most of the Assassins in the Guild by smell now. This is...odd."

"Even by Ankh–Morpork standards?" Carrot asked, smiling.

Reluctantly, Angua smiled too. "Yes. I don't think I've ever smelled this stuff in the city. In any city."

Carrot sniffed the air. Even without Angua's heightened senses he smelled it. It was very heavy on the air.

"Phew, that's powerful, whatever it is. Can you tell how he was murdered then?"

Angua closed her eyes for a moment. "Stand back, Carrot, and don't move."

He obeyed instantly and covered his eyes. Angua shuddered for a moment before morphing into her wolf form. The blood seemed to coat the air and she was having a very difficult time controlling her instincts. She sniffed the body and then transformed again. As she buttoned her shirt she called to Carrot, "It's alright, you can look now."

He took his hands away from his eyes and looked at her expectantly.

"Well, the knife in his throat was overkill. He was poisoned, arsenic, I think. You'd have to get Cheery to say for sure."

Carrot nodded. "I can't be sure, but doesn't he look like Mr. Bloodenguts?"

"The _baker_?"

Carrot nodded again. "Can't be sure, though. I'll have to ask Mister Vimes."

Corporal Cheery Littlebottom came running up to them and took a step back when she saw the body. She threw off a hasty salute and got to work. Assured that it was now in safe hands, Carrot and Angua walked back.

They were enveloped in silence and neither said a word to break the spell of the evening. Angua could tell that Carrot was worried about something, and she had her own problems.

Her trouble was that she didn't know what to do about him. He was just too bloody perfect! Everyone loved Captain Carrot, and, Angua admitted, so did she. It wasn't something she said out loud, in fact, in all their time together Carrot and Angua had never said, "I love you." There was plenty of evidence that they cared deeply for one another, they had been able to say _that_, but the word love never managed to come up in everyday conversation.

She knew the reason too, or at least she knew why she had never said it. It wasn't as if it wasn't true. She loved Carrot deeply, too much sometimes. Other times he annoyed her no end, but she still loved him. Why couldn't she tell him then? Why did the words loom over their heads like a storm cloud? It was rather simple. Angua knew that if she ever said the words, then she'd never be able to leave.

And she would have to leave one day. When it became too much for them, when Carrot finally realized that even if he could over look her "problem" the rest of the world couldn't. Or wouldn't, same thing. She had come close several times, but something always held her back; something named Carrot. Even that last time in Uberwald, she had been so scared that she might lose him. He could be so bloody stupid sometimes!

Yet she loved him. Oh, she could say it to herself, that wasn't the problem. But she knew that if she said it to Carrot, he'd take that as consent, and then he'd ask her to marry him. That she couldn't do. If she married him, the ties would be there, and she could never leave. Then she'd destroy him.

That was the one fear that plagued her above all else. No one, not Carrot, not Cheery not Commander Vimes, not Lady Sybil, no one could understand what she had felt as she watched her brother Wolfgang go completely insane. Perhaps they put it down to pity because he had been her brother, because they had been family. Perhaps they even thought she missed him.

They couldn't have been further from the truth. If anything, the fact that they had been family haunted her. She was terrified of becoming him. Of losing her mind and destroying everything in her path. Of giving in to the wolf. Of hurting Carrot.

"Carrot?"

"Mm?"

"Where are we going?"

He shrugged in the darkness. "Wherever you'd like. Back to the Yard?"

"Actually, I'd just like to walk around a bit. Maybe have a talk." She waited for his reaction.

"Sure."

Angua sighed. Carrot was so innocently dense that it made her teeth hurt.** He gave no indication that he noticed anything amiss.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" he asked, taking her hand as they strolled down the empty street.

His hand was so warm and comforting, and Angua leaned in closer to him.

"Oh, you know, the usual," she said with another sigh. 

"You mean us."

"Right."

There was silence.

"Are you planning to leave again?" he asked, his voice low and deceptively calm. Angua could hear the slight tremor beneath the calm, though.

"I don't know," she said finally. "You know it's going to happen eventually."

"You keep saying that," he replied. "But you haven't told me why."

This was the point she kept avoiding. But she brought the subject up, she owed Carrot an explanation.

"Carrot, I'm dangerous! You were there in Uberwald, you know what a werewolf is capable of!"

She had pulled away from him. He stared at her with those piercing blue eyes and she winced.

"I told you then, Angua, you're not your brother. I don't think you would ever hurt me, certainly not on purpose."

He believes that, she thought wildly. He actually believes it. Gods, he doesn't understand. He can't understand. How can I love someone who doesn't understand?

"Besides, I—"

Oh, gods, Carrot don't say it. No, anything but that, please don't say the 'l' word. Not now.

He didn't have the chance. A shadowy figure came out of the, well, shadows, and grabbed Angua around the neck. Ordinarily she would have just broken his arm and punched him in the nose, but he was pressing something very pointy to her neck. It burned like fire.

_Silver_. Someone knew. She struggled but the point only bit deeper into her skin.

"_Carrot! _"

"Give me all your money or the girl dies," the man growled. Angua bit back a cry of pain.

"Can I see your Thieve's Guild license please?" Carrot asked pleasantly. Angua wanted to smack him, but she could see that he was tensed to pounce.

"Don't have one," the would–be thief muttered. He pressed the little knife harder against her neck. "Don't do anything stupid."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Carrot replied cheerfully. "But I'm afraid I'll have to put you under arrest."

The man pulled back and pulled Angua with him. "Won't go."

"So, resisting arrest?" Angua knew what was coming next. "All right, then."

"Remember what Mister Vimes said," she shouted. "Don't you dare fight like a gentleman! Damn the Marquis of Fantailler!"***

It was all over in a matter of moments. She felt the pressure remove itself from her neck and there were several sounds like those of an iron bar hitting a sack of sand. In the stomach it seemed. Once Carrot had put the thief out flat, he began to read the thief his rights. Angua rolled her eyes. Carrot was a firm believer in justice and protocol. It could be annoying sometimes.

Once he put her attacker in handcuffs, they took him back to the Watch House and threw him in a cell. He was just lucky he hadn't been caught by the Guild. 

Carrot and Angua went back out on patrol. As they walked by the river Ankh again, Angua suddenly stopped. She would never be entirely sure what she meant to say at that moment. Thank you, probably, or let's turn left at that stump, but certainly not what actually came out of her mouth.

"Carrot, why don't you ever tell me that you love me?"

He stopped suddenly and didn't turn. Angua mentally slapped herself. Where had that come from? What would he say? She expected him to say something like, "But I did, only last night." She should have known better. This was Carrot Ironfoundersson, to whom the word lie only went with the word down.

"I didn't think I had to," he answered. Angua stared at him in astonishment.

"Didn't think you had to?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he said. He was almost pleading with her. "It seemed like an unspoken rule that I wasn't to say that word. That doesn't mean it isn't true."

"Unspoken rule." Angua forced down the lump in her throat. She thought she would cry. "Did I make you think that?"

He nodded. "Since you never said it, I never said it." A panicked look crossed his face. "Unless...you don't feel the same."

"Oh, Carrot."

It began to rain. It did that a lot in Ankh–Morpork. Angua wasn't aware of anything but Carrot who was still staring at her with his haunting blue eyes.

"You know why I can't say it, don't you?" Angua said desperately, pushing sodden hair from her eyes. "Do you?"

Carrot frowned, thinking. "I'm not sure. Does it have something to do with feminine troubles?"

"What?"

"Well, that's what Mister Vimes always says is wrong with Lady Sybil when they have a fight," Carrot said.

Angua laughed despite the seriousness of the conversation. "No, Carrot. And we're not fighting."

"We're not?" he asked, confused.

"No. We're discussing us. And I asked you if you knew why I could never tell you—"

Carrot cut her off. "I love you, you know that. Come on, let's go back to the Watch House."

And as they walked back to the Yard, hand in hand, Angua decided Carrot was right, they didn't need to say the words. The words weren't important. It was the feelings behind them that mattered. 

But he had said it. And she felt the same.

*such as Reg Shoe, Ankh Morpork City Watch and zombie

**like drinking chocolate syrup to wash down the bowl full of sugar you just ate

***A rather noble idiot who wrote a set of rules for what he termed "the art of fisticuffs". Unfortunately for him, the people he fought didn't know the rules.


End file.
